Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => General Discussion => Topic started by: rutger kohler on September 28, 2013, 07:13:18
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Several days ago Garry Marks made a plug for all those who use this site to become full members.
I fully agree with this, however becoming full members would become much more attractive to those living outside the US if they could automatically get access to the Electronic Parts Catalogue, as those with the US already do (as I understand it).
How difficult would it be for the club to lobby MB to get this done, and why is access restricted to to US residents at the moment? Can we put this in motion?
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I second that motion!
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As far as I know the US member access is not through this group, but through the US MB club? I.e. membership in the Pagoda Group does not give anyone access to EPC? And so far, I don't think the Group has been recognized in any way by MB.
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I had another try at formal recognition by MB at the last Techno Classica in Essen, given how the cooperation with the German Pagoda SL Group was going... MB just couldn't care less...
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... MB just couldn't care less...
That is really a great pity ... I always found if at first we don't succeed try and try again .... wondering if the right person has been asked .... why should we (the rest of the world) not have the same access as the owners in Germany ?? ??? ??
Why not go directly to the top and contact
Dr. Dieter Zetsche
e-mail: dialog@daimler.com
or address a request to him here ...
Daimler AG
Corporate Headquarters
Mercedesstr. 137
70327 Stuttgart
Germany
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If you are a member of the UK official Mercedes-Benz Cub you get access to the EPC free.
You do have to jump through hoops to get there but it is possible,( I find it too much hassle and prefer calling into my local stealer).
I do not know if you could access it from New Zealand but I feel sure one of our UK experts will have the answer.
Eric
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I know if your a member of the NZ Mercedes car club you also have access to EPC via this link http://mercedes-benz-clubs.com/Anmeldung/ClubLounge/73/de/001
I am guessing but I think its probably available to every Mercedes Benz car club world wide. The NZ Merc car club is only 70 nzd per year to join so if you need access to EPC the membership pays for itself instantly.
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I had another try at formal recognition by MB at the last Techno Classica in Essen, given how the cooperation with the German Pagoda SL Group was going... MB just couldn't care less...
Thanks for having tried again.
I tried a couple of months after we formed, the history is elsewhere. I couldn't fault MB for reacting negatively then (although I was not thrilled for having come 500 or so km for what became one of the shortest meetings I ever had) but one would think that, 10 years later, thousands of members more and a score of great live events behind us, one would think we had established our credibility by now. Alass, it's organized by country and since we don't fit that model, it's tough luck.
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Hi, I don't belong to a NZ MB group anymore, I have in the past but found that most members owned modern MB cars and did not really have the same interests as me. It makes more sense to me to be a full member of this group.
I think a valid point to make to MB HQ is that the combined membership of this group must spend a great deal more money on parts per capita than any other MB group world wide?
Also the combined per car advertising for MB itself for pagoda's far outweighs any other model, just by us driving our cars. I realise the gull wing is more iconic but how many of these are there?
What can MB's possible objection be, to giving this club's full members access to the EPC?
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None of the otherwise valid points made here make a bit of diffrence to MBCCI. They grandfathered the exsisting clubs in NA about 10+ years ago which are the Gullwing Group, 190SL Group, M100 Group, MBCA and MBCC.
There are number of other reasons why we are, and will continue in the future to go nowhere with this idea. The reasons are complex with a few explanations given here already but to go into this would open up a lot of things for discussion, something most don't seem to want because they appear to like things the way they are.
The very nature of how we do things would have to change before we will ever be recognized by MB and I'm not thinking anyone here has the balls to to put up their hand at the next meeting. Last time I tried that I got all of my fingers shot off so, no thanks............
There is a Russian web site with EPC on it. I looked but didn't spend much time there so I can't say how good it is. MBC is a different operation than MBUSA and they don't offfer EPC for us. MBUSA asks for a ZIP code which means I'm out before I begin.
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Alass, it's organized by country and since we don't fit that model, it's tough luck.
I met with the guy at MB who is in charge of the Classic Car clubs around the world. I'm fairly sure that if you contacted Dr Zetsche, that's where the request would end up anyway. I had lunch with him, he was very nice, listened politely, but MB also needs to cut back. Their policy is: one official, affiliated MB club per country, except for Germany, where they have a bunch of type related, affiliated clubs. When I mentioned there were exceptions to this rule, he immediately accepted that, but indicated that these were recognized in the past, and that they were carefully pushing these smaller groups (eg a 190SL group in Italy) to merge with the country group.
There are some downsides to becoming one of their groups too... To fully benefit (I.e. Access to EPC) we'd need to adopt their membership system, which would not suit our platform...
So, an international Pagoda group does not fit their model. It does suit us. I suggest we leave it at that.
Peter
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OK it's been tried and won't work, thanks anyway. i would have to say that Tom Hansen of MB classic responds immediately to any request for part details and pricing so I am happy with that.
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... When I mentioned there were exceptions to this rule, he immediately accepted that, but indicated that these were recognized in the past, and that they were carefully pushing these smaller groups (eg a 190SL group in Italy) to merge with the country group.
So, an international Pagoda group does not fit their model. It does suit us. I suggest we leave it at that.
Peter
... although one of these 'exceptions' was another model-specific club in Germany that was given recognition status years after the official "one club per country" was adopted, showing that there are exceptions possible even today. But I fully agree that it's probably more hassle than it's worth, and at least we can never be accused of not trying.
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Or, maybe our original idea to be an international operation was too ambitious and now it's starting to cach up with us.
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No, we're even more international than when we started. The only thing we won't achieve is 'MB recognized status' which may have more afvantages thN disadvantages actually. It just seemed like the right thing to strive for at the time.
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I noticed on our Williamsburg Name Tags it said "The International Club for Mercedes 230SL, 250 SL and 280 SL Pagodas" was that a typo???
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I have never had the privilege of playing with EPC but have found this on the internet. http://mb.ilcats.ru/group/class/1/ccode/1/cat/249/type/113/subtype/042
Does it offer everything that EPC does? If MB wont support this club for preserving part of their history then should I feel guilty about finding some form of 'back door' pseudo epc hosted on the internet?
Also if you go to ebay right now and type in the keywords 'Mercedes EPC' you will find a three or four dozen pirate traders openly advertising for both EPC and WIS for as little as 30USD. I can only assume that these have all been leaked from CD's supplied to the dealer network. These have been available for some years and it would seem that Mercedes has never decided to come down hard on these pirate copies.
With it being so easy to obtain a pirate version of this software it seems absolutely ridiculous to me that they shouldn't supply us a legitimate version to host on the 113 server.
I would like to think that in a peculiar type of way I am doing Mercedes Benz a great service by preserving the blood lines of one of their most coveted creations. This model is now gracing more classic car magazine covers than ever before and is seen by a vast international audience. Mercedes don't pay for these restorations but indirectly benefit from the exposure. Surely this alone must go along way to bolster their reputation as a premiere brand. I would have thought supplying the community responsible for the majority of the effort with a closed copy of EPC would have been no skin off MB's snozzle.
But as you guys have pointed out, no point flogging a dead horse. Will just stick to my dodgey Russian web site and continue to hope like hell the prices continue to rise so I recover some small fraction of the 1500+ hours of labor and very expensive genuine parts I have poured into it.
No risk to me whatsoever.
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I know if your a member of the NZ Mercedes car club you also have access to EPC via this link http://mercedes-benz-clubs.com/Anmeldung/ClubLounge/73/de/001
That link looked familiar so I checked my favorites. That`s the link I used to try to access the EPC today from here in Canada, using my MBUSA Club Card number.
I got as far as signing in to the EPC but ran up against an agreement that I had to sign. It said that I would be eligible only if I can provide a European Union permanent address and pay a fee that was not identified. So I backed out.
Maybe it bluffed me out.
Tom Kizer
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I noticed on our Williamsburg Name Tags it said "The International Club for Mercedes 230SL, 250 SL and 280 SL Pagodas" was that a typo???
The official name for this group is the "W113 Pagoda SL Group". Back in the day we were concerned that adding the words 'Mercedes Benz' would open us up to litigation from MB. That perception has been relaxed a bit it seems.
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Or, maybe our original idea to be an international operation was too ambitious and now it's starting to cach up with us.
??? And what makes you say that, with 4 PUB's since 2005, 3 Events in Europe in 6 years, this year 3 successful events in Australia, the US, and Europe... and members from 84 countries, and 673 Full Members from 42 distinct countries?
Peter
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??? And what makes you say that, with 4 PUB's since 2005, 3 Events in Europe in 6 years, this year 3 successful events in Australia, the US, and Europe... and members from 84 countries, and 673 Full Members from 42 distinct countries?
Peter
Sounds pretty impressive doesn't it?
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I have just received a reply from Mercedes Benz (Marcel Schuh Mercedes-Benz Classic Mercedes-Benz Club Management Club Manager Overseas HPC R 051 70546 Stuttgart). The reply is in German.
I referred him to this thread and what he is basically saying is ....
QUOTE "Wie bereits in einem Eintrag in Ihrem Forum geschrieben, ist der Zugang zum EPC nur unseren offiziell anerkannten Mercedes-Benz Markenclubs als Benefit vorbehalten. Gerne können Sie in einem unserer offiziellen Mercedes-Benz Clubs Mitglied werden (z.B. Mercedes-Benz Club Canada - http://www.mbclubcanada.com) und neben vielen anderen Vorteilen auch das EPC kostenlos nutzen." END OF QUOTE
TRANSLATION
As already written in an entry in your forum, access to the EPC is our only officially recognized Mercedes-Benz brand clubs as a benefit reserved. You are welcome in our official Mercedes-Benz Club Member (eg Mercedes-Benz Club Canada - http://www.mbclubcanada.com) and in addition to many other advantages, the EPC is free.
I cannot access the Mercedes Benz of Canada Forum (I only have a membership number and no membership card still waiting for Germany to mail it to me). Apparently the membership card has a "Captcha" number that I must enter in order to register at the club site.
END of TRANSLATION
I do have a Model 113 - Catalog "A" 1972 US Version it is quite specific as far as parts are concerned, however, access to an electronic parts catalog would be super. I shall see once I get my Membership card if it holds true to access this data base.
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I've been a member of the MBCC for a long time and I don't recall there being anything said about access to the EPC. My bet is no one ever asked about it so it never came up. So I really can't say that is, or is not available.
You see, our greatest strenghts are also our greatest weekeness, that being distance. Just to get to P-50 was a two day drive, such are the distances in NA. I didn't see any presidents from the club there because, again, it's too far to travel. Everyone who had P-50 events had them where the greatest number of cars could make a resonable effort to attend. This not only makes sense but is a resonable approach to fairness. Other than flying out to Caifornia I doubt I would drive my car out there for a given event. I may go there on my own at some point but that's of my own doing.
Nor will I likely ever go to Oz and it's fairly unlikely that I will go to Europe. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that 98% or more fall into this same general travel catagory. It's from that position that I say our goals have been too ambitious. All of the stats of members from all over the world are purely incidental when you honestly take a look at the big picture. What we have here is evolving into 3 clear and defineable regions being Oz, Europe and NA. These are the areas where the most cars are, will likely continue to be, and where the bulk of our members are from. All members are important of course, but most can't or won't change where they live. In fact, the cars probably move around more than their owners do.
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Dan,
you assume that because you and I did not attend the same events... we are not members of the same club. With all respect, but that is a load of crap. You are a member of the same club, that I am a member of. Regardless of whether we met in real life or not. I know that if you are ever in the Netherlands, I will invite you to my house, feed you and provide you with drinks, and we'll have a great time. Precisely because we are members of the same club.
I've come to visit people I met through this Internet forum, all around the world, a number of times. I've seen their cars... even driven them. I've visited their houses etc. Others have visited me, stayed here, ate here, and we had fun and a great time.
I think that I've met over 80 people (and yes, that's just over 12% of the Full Membership) in real life. I won't mention names but those who know me know... and I'm sure feel the same about the club. I know others amongst us value their virtual connections as much as I do, and also value the real life connections.
Location and life visits is just one thing. I know of many members whose day is not complete without checking the forum, reading all the new messages and keeping up. They enjoy the virtual company almost as much as life company.
So stop being grumpy, and accept that the club is successful. Why do you always have to present such a negative view?
Peter
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Oh, so having a different point of view is being negative?
The distances are too great for us to have a world wide club. It works OK on the internet which is basicly what we have right now. We also have three areas of activity because that's where the cars are. I didn't invent this - it's happening all by itself. We can either be proactive and get in front of changes that will happen anyway or we can sit and wait them to happen.
I like the people in the club and get along with everyone - I think they like me too. Don't start painting me like I'm some kind of hobo that just walked in off the street, OK? :)
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Incidentally if any of you are ever down in New Zealand it would be my privilege to pick you up from the airport in my little 113.... if I ever get it finished that is. :P
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Continuing with the subject discussion, "EPC access for full members living outside of the US", Andy Burns mentioned in reply #6 the MBNZ access to the EPC. I responded in reply #17 that I ran up against a payment agreement that I had to sign and a EU residency that I had to claim to get access, neither of which I was prepared to do.
Rolf-Dieter offered a link to MBCanada that I used my MBUSA Club Card info to access. It worked fine, but when I tried to access the EPC through MBCanada, I ran up against the same website with the same agreement that I previously encountered. I refuse to lie about my residency. If they don't care where we live, just that we are MB Club members, then they should change their contract wording so that we feel welcome. It's still written for Europeans only.
Andy, likewise if you get to Quebec, Canada, contact me.
Tom Kizer
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Tom,
I paid an annual subscription to MB USA club to get access to the EPC. I discovered that they use a technique to block IP addresses not from that country. It was a waste of 70 dollars US.
The link I posted earlier is free and there are no restrictions at all. It doesn't have the bells and whistles but certainly serves the purpose. I think you should have another look. If you have trouble I am happy to help out.
My father was heavily involved in the MB Club of NZ which is how I got involved with the brand. As well as being the president at one point he was also the membership guy. I asked him last night how it all works and his reply was as follows:
Normal club membership has nothing to do with the access to the MB member portal which EPC is hosted within. Each year the car club asks the local member base if anyone would like access to it. Most of the clubs member base here in NZ are quite senior or non technical and as a consequence hardly anyone responds. Once a list has been compiled its sent to Germany and within a month or two a club card is mailed directly to the club members along with an initial username and password to get in. The membership is valid for only 12 months and has to be renewed on a yearly basis. If you miss the cut off point it seems that you have to wait for a further 12 months. ie Mercedes only seems to accept applications within a certain time period each year.
The subscription gives you access to not only EPC but a full copy of WIS and also pdf versions of the factory classic magazine which is printed once every 3 to 4 months. Quite a nice publication which recently had a cover spread of a very nice white 230sl in white. This was for the 50th I think.
I can try and get some screen shots of whats on offer if your interested.
Andy
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Guys, can we just drop this please. I asked if we could get EPC for full members and I now understand why not. Not a problem. I like the club the way it is and don't want to see this thread degenerate into something that is not useful.
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Andy, as I recall, you're a programmer, so I expect you know you could use a free IP 'tunelling' (or 'VPN') service that makes it look like you're coming from a US IP. This is one: http://www.securitykiss.com/ but there are many others.
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I've written another e-mail to Herr Marcel Schuh Mercedes-Benz Classic Mercedes-Benz Club Management Club Manager Overseas. I also have come across many US web sites when one likes to order something it simply does not accept our Canadian Postal Code. So it can become very frustrating.
I've addressed that very point to Herr Marcel Schuh Mercedes-Benz Classic Mercedes-Benz Club Management Club Manager Overseas. I asked him if he can have someone check out the program to perhaps reset the data entry for the Postal Code or Zip Code once the user enters the country of origin to then accept the right country Postal Code or Zip Code.
Let us see how Herr Schuh responds, after all to ask costs nothing :)
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is this what your looking for ?
http://www.everythingbenz.com/z/mtype/113044-mercedes-chassis-schematics-drawings
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Hi Dave ... while it is the right web site, the language is unfortunately not English ...
I recieved a further reply from Mr Schuh of Mercedes-Benz after explaining to him once more how we (as Canadians) are not able to access the site due to the ZIP CODE / POSTAL CODE issue.
He writes ....
Sehr geehrter Herr S....,
bitte haben Sie mit der Beantwortung Ihrer Anfrage noch ein bisschen Geduld. Ich schaue einen Ansprechpartner für besagte Thematik zu finden
und das Thema bei diesem zu platzieren.
Ich melde mich sobald ich weitere Informationen habe.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen und herzlichen Dank
Marcel Schuh
Mercedes-Benz Classic
Mercedes-Benz Club Management
Club Manager Overseas
HPC R 051
70546 Stuttgart
E-Mail: marcel.schuh@daimler.com
TRANSLATION
Dear Mr. S....,
Please have a little patience in answering your inquiry. I am looking to find a partner for said subject and to place the subject in this hands.
I will let you know as soon as I have more information.
Best regards and thank you
Marcel Shoe
Mercedes-Benz Classic
Mercedes-Benz Club Management
Club Manager Overseas
HPC R 051
70546 Stuttgart
END OF TRANSLATION
Stay tuned for further updates, however, I am not holding my breath on this one :)
Rolf-Dieter ...
PS .... Meanwhile let us enjoy our car(s) top down weather continues this week up here in the Eastern part of Canada anyway :)
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Dieter,
how about if we try to get MBCA-Toronto section or even MB Club of Canada to go to bat for us with MB Canada? Surely they must allow their dealers access to the EPC. Maybe they would relent for members of an "official" club. I love this forum (and I don't think we should try to become an "official" club, but that's another topic) but I don't think we can expect any special treatment from the MB corporate structure.
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Hi Peter (pj),
For myself I just like to understand every aspect of my car (it’s just the inquisitive mind of mine needing to know the mechanical workings of all the devices). I have enough background information to accomplish just this with this forums feedback from members like Dan C. and Joe A. as well as others. In addition I do have as mentioned before the
Type 250 SL - 280 SL Model 113-CATALOG “A” - 1972 U.S. Version # 12 808
This then does fine for my needs. I only posted in this thread to respond and help the OP to see what can be done if one approaches the right people at Mercedes Headquarters. I don’t think too much will be accomplished, I say this from experience as I so far learned that the issue is being passed on to someone else tells me that it soon will die and will be filed in some sort of “O” File and forgotten.
The bottom line is, it would be nice if everyone that owns a Pagoda could have access to the electronic parts catalogue. I don’t see why only a certain group has access to it, we all cherish this car the same way. I’ve tried to help and if indeed I get a follow up reply from Germany then I shall share it here with others. Meanwhile resources here in this forum and books and other background information I have form the 113 Model fulfill my needs.
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Hello all,
Any individual with a Mercedes interest can have access to the EPC. Either via your membership in a recognised M-B Club, or, you pay a fee online, yourself.
See web http://service-parts.mercedes-benz.com/dcagportal/DCAGPortal/menu.action?pageId=11 (http://service-parts.mercedes-benz.com/dcagportal/DCAGPortal/menu.action?pageId=11)
http://service-parts.mercedes-benz.com/dcagportal/DCAGPortal/menu.action?pageId=68 (http://service-parts.mercedes-benz.com/dcagportal/DCAGPortal/menu.action?pageId=68)
/hans in sweden
EPC
You can have EPC access if you pay a yearly registration fee to receive access authorization for EPC. With this fee, you are entitled to 1 year of access to all categories (MB passenger cars, MB commercial vehicles and smart).
Price EPC
Yearly registration fee for access to MB Passenger Cars*, MB Commercial Vehicles* and smart: 18.00 € w/o VAT 21.60 Euro incl. VAT
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Thanks Hans - this seems to work, I was able to register as a private person and it seems a reasonably low price. However I did not complete the registration because I actually don't know what the benefit of EPC would be. If I need a part I just call or email a supplier, explain what I need and that works fine? What do we need this EPC for?
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Thanks Hans - this seems to work, I was able to register as a private person and it seems a reasonably low price. However I did not complete the registration because I actually don't know what the benefit of EPC would be. If I need a part I just call or email a supplier, explain what I need and that works fine? What do we need this EPC for?
I'm not entirely sure that anyone does. It should give you the updated part numbers and maybe a few other things that a dealers book doesn't have. For the most part, I go to a site like K&K and find what I'm looking for there. Nothing is as good as a dealers parts book which gives you everything and you can take it with you if you have to travel.
However, for most people, they will hardly ever use it unless they are restoring a car. I'd have to believe there are other things that someone would want more but then, maybe not.......
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My Brother in Germany lives near this German Classic Centre and shared the web site with me where he sources some of the parts he needs for his Benz.
I've used GOOGLE to translate te site from German to English in case it is of any use to anyone here.
Click here ---> http://translate.google.ca/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mercedes-lager.de%2Fauswahl.php&act=url
Might be useful to compare prices, I expect prices to be a bit higher, perhaps not. Anyway it is a parts info site by model and motor number (without drawings).
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I've found the EPC very useful because:
- much faster when ordering parts from the dealer, just give them the part number. If a part has been superseded, you will get the updated number
- if you need a bunch of stuff, you can create a Shopping List and print it or fax it.
- the Search function will tell you all the models that use a particular part. Very useful when searching on ebay or other sources
- for later cars, the Datacard function will give you engine and transmission number and all of the SA codes for a particular car
- you can do a screen print and put it in an email, web posting or other document
- you can print a diagram and/or the parts list for a particular function (e.g. brakes). You can print it to a PDF and attach it to an email or web posting
- you can take the print with you to the garage and not get your Parts Book dirty
- very easy to tell what changed from model to model, like 230 to 250, and at what VIN
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Thanks chuck - very convincing and thorough list of benefits!